Gavin Hartin
AP US History
Period 8
“On Lynchings” EssayThe end of the civil war brought freedom and liberty to the African-Americans incarcerated in the peculiar institution of slavery. However, the end of the fighting did not bring the former slaves safety from the hate and racism that was to come. The book “On Lynchings” by Ida b. Wells-Barnett describes the crimes committed against the African-Americans after their release from slavery. The hate crimes and accusations against the new freemen were coming from Southern White Americans. From the crimes and wrongdoings committed by the white southerners against the freed African-Americans displays the supremacist mindset most white southerners had regarding the former slaves.

During the time period after the civil war the African-Americans were persecuted harshly and treated unfairly by white southerners. Black men were constantly accused of raping white women even though they had been seduced by the women. For example, William Offet, a freed black man was accused of and found guilty of raping a Mrs. Underwood, a white married woman. In reality, Mrs. Underwood had “invited him to call on” her and when he came to her house she “had no desire to resist him” (Wells-Barnett 32-33). Mrs. Underwood waited four years to confess what had actually happened because she felt she was better than to admit to sleeping with an African-American. The former slaves were also victims of terrible crimes that went unnoticed by the law. For instance, a group of three white men assaulted an Afro-American couple out on a stroll when they “held her escort and outraged the girl” (37). When the “case went to the courts” the men were defended “and they were acquitted” of charges of rape (37). The southern whites got away with their heinous crime due to the girl being an Afro-American and her people were seen as a lesser race.

Clearly, the examples given in Wells-Barnett’s “On Lynchings” prove that the Southern White...

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Published: October 18, 2013
Lynching is a violent punishment of execution without due process for real or alleged crimes. From the 1800s to the 1930s lynching has been a huge impact on African American lives especially in the South. During the late 19th century lynching was approved by the public and was actually thought of in the name justice. Back in those days lynching was thought of as a punishment for when you did wrong. I believe that lynching is very cruel and disruptive and has a negative impact on African Americans.
Lynching received its name from Charles Lynch who was a landowner in Virginia in 1790. He was known for having illegal trials in his backyard. As their punishment he would tie the person to the tree and whip them. It is estimated that 3,446 African Americans have died from lynching (many more likely occurred without being documented)! Lynching does not always mean hanging. It often includes humiliation, torture, burning, and dismemberment.
“Statistics show that, out of every hundred African Americans who are lynched, from seventy-five to eighty-five are not even accused of a crime, and many who are accused are innocent.”(pg854) As said in the book Lynching from a Negro’s Point of View. This is saying...

...beautiful picture. In the picture you would not only see the lynching most times, but also the bystanders watching it happen often smiling about it like a social event. While it may seem awful nowadays, back then it was actually pretty common just to be an onlooker at a lynching, and for the most part a very socially acceptable thing to do. So maybe after all, the bystanders may not be complete monsters, as we make them out to be today.
Today, when we think of people putting a lynching on a post card we think; how could you possibly put a lynching on a postcard, that’s quite absurd. However, in all honesty, they were doing the socially acceptable thing back then. Showing up to a lynching in their Sunday best was basically symbolizing that they support their community; by killing who they thought were monsters. Almost every person that got lynched in these pictures was of people who had committed a crime of some sort, whether it was rightfully accused or not. In many ways, the lynching was just a part of their culture back then. The people back then, thought they were just protecting their own communities by getting rid of people who brought harm into their town. Going to a lynching was sort of a peaceful time then, because everybody felt safe after the harmful one was disposed of. It was a time where families could get together and get revenge upon the one who had been a...

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These photos show how dangerous it was to be an African American trying to become something during Jim Crow America. If you wanted to be anything more then a free slave you would be hunted down by the Ku Klux Klan and lynched. Although it was against the law, it seemed to have become socially acceptable because people were sending these pictures as postcards. Also, hangings were a spectacle. In many of the photos large groups of people crowed around to watch and stare at the bodies. These events were so open and public that even little girls attended them as seen in one of the photos. Most people that were in the pictures in the background and posing were whites. Even though while performing a lynching most people were masked, no one wore masks while going to look at one. This is because it was against the law and the people who preformed the lynchings didn’t want to be recognized since most of them were upstanding members of society, even police officers. It was not however, a bad thing to go see the aftermath of the lynching. This was because it was something many people were proud of. The notes on the postcards shoed that people were proud of this and that they wanted it to be seen. It is also seen in the pictures that not only were they hanged but burned, shot, and beaten. All of this shows how dangerous it was to be a minority, specifically African American during this...

...Without Fear or Shame
James W. Clarke, strongly deliberates the lynching epidemic of the tensioned south during the late nineteenth century between the white supremacies and the newly emancipated blacks. Clarke explains that, “Before emancipation, lynching was primarily a frontier phenomenon that occurred when sheriffs, judges, juries, and jails were far removed by space and time from wrongdoing and a demand for swift retribution.”(271) Althoughlynching was not new to the south, it was becoming a new symbolization of racial oppression. Clarke also states that the targets for lynching were the freed black men as oppose to those who were still enslaved. Slaves were very much protected by the owners and seen as valuable investments. Although many argue that lynching was an act of punishment for wrongdoings, in actuality it was mostly used as an excuse for racial injustice. To add credibility to this argument, Clarke uses several graphs and charts from the Department of Records and Research of Tuskeegee, Southern newspapers, student of Fisk University narratives, recordings, photographs, and criminal cases, among more. There were many recorded lynchings throughout the south and yet more continued. One man by the name of Sam Hose was lynched in Palmetto, Georgia for openly admitting to killing his employer over an argument on his wages. Hose was slowly burned to death after having his...

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Strange Fruit: An Overview of Lynching in America
“The practice of lynching in the United States is a phenomenon that scholars from all backgrounds- history, psychology, sociology, and economics- continue to analyze. (pg. 89) ” Lynching to me was a way for white’s to get back at blacks in a horrifying manner. Many whites believed that lynching was simply a necessary reaction to criminal behavior on the part of blacks. “Lynching played a key role in affirming the place of poor whites within the strata of southern society” (pg. 91). The lynching mobs consisted of twelve or more whites that took matters into their own hands to torture an African American person brutally or even worse, murder them.
Lynching started to take place after World War II. In most cases lynching effected black African Americans. They were kidnapped and lynched for reasons whites thought were not socially acceptable. Whites looked at lynching as immediately justice for themselves. Personally, if blacks were taken to court they would still be penalized because the jury was likely to be an all-white jury in most cases. “In rare cases lynches were brought to trial, all white juries, time after time, they failed to find the guilty” (pg. 96). Less than one percent of lynches were convicted for their crimes. Failure to find lynchers guilty showed an injustice to the black...

...102F
Lynching in American Culture: Annotated Bibliography
ARMSTRONG, JULIE BUCKNER. "The People…Took Exception To Her Remarks": Meta
Warrick Fuller, Angelina Weld Grimké, And The Lynching Of Mary Turner."
Mississippi Quarterly 62.1/2 (2008): 113-141. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27
Sept. 2013.
In this article Julie Buckner discussed exploration into the events of the 1918 lynching of the Georgian African American woman Mary Turner and its depiction within the sculpture "In Memory of Mary Turner: As a Silent Protest Against Mob Violence," by Meta Warrick Fuller and the short story "Goldie," by Angelina Weld Grimké. Discussion is given regarding what the works reveal about the events and social psychology present behind the action. This source is useful because it shows how, people protest against lynching and mob violence in the south. The intended audience is for anyone interested in studying African American culture, it is important to keep track of our American culture and background history. This article can relate to the movie “The Great Debaters” because of the brutal violence and lynching in the south. Unlike the journal below from 2013 this article discusses the silent protest against the violence in the southern areas. Furthermore, this article relates to my topic of “lynching in American culture”, because it explains in detail how African American man and women were...

...Attempted Genocide: History of Lynching
The Anti-Lynching Campaign in Tennessee by Ida B Wells tells the story of three innocent Black businessmen who were subjected to violence by a white mob in 1892. 1892 was marked as the year when lynchings were at their peak and became most violent. Wells wrote this 6 page editorial to expose lynching of innocent African Americans in the United States, at this particular time it was the incident in Memphis, Tennessee involving outstanding citizens and close friends of hers that drove her to write this article and begin her anti-lynching campaign. Lynching is defined as the murder of a person accused of some offense, real, or imagined, by a mob. As a significant aspect of United States history, lynching was used to punish slaves and to terrorize African Americans well after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Like many other Blacks, Wells grew enraged about this brutal crime that cost many innocent African Americans and their families their lives. In, Anti-Lynching Campaign in Tennesse, Wells looks back on the lynching of three good friends and writes to inform Americans through a method of investigation and exposure, that lynching was an excuse for white retaliation against Blacks. She writes an essay that condemns and exposes a hidden crime against African Americans. One good reason for her...

...Americans were killed during this time period (“Lynching Statistics”). This atrocity only furthered African American resentment towards their white oppressors, which made their rebellion a very violent affair.
Many factors contributed to the mass lynches that were primarily for African Americans. One of these reasons was that the newly freed African American slaves posed a new threat to white women. In hopes of protecting their loved ones, white men automatically assume the absolute worst about African American men, especially if said white man sees the African American man speaking or merely looking at a white woman (“Lynching”).
For example, in 1955, an African-American teenager, Emmett Till, from Chicago, was murdered while visiting family in Money, Mississippi; a town with a population of 55. Till's only offense: trying to flirt with a store owner's European-American wife due to a dare from his friends. Four days later, his beaten, unclothed, and dead body was found in the banks of the Tallahatchie River, nearby. The store owner (the European woman’s husband)
and his half-brother were the culprits. Both of these men had no consequences for their violent acts of hatred for a stranger merely speaking to their loved one, who had no harm due to the conversation (Steelwater).
It was all too common that immediate assumptions were implied that African Americans had the intentions of harming or raping the white woman...